As entrepreneurs, we have the flexibility to work just about any time, anywhere we want. But the reality is that 90% of our time, we spend working alone in silence. Habits like working long hours, never leaving the house, or overreliance on social media for human interaction can contribute to entrepreneur loneliness.
It’s becoming more and more apparent that loneliness is becoming an epidemic inside of the online business industry. If you are a business owner and have experienced the isolation, the feelings of loneliness that tend to come with working from home, you are not alone, even though it feels like it
– Pamela Grice, business Coach
In this episode we talk about loneliness as an entrepreneur: what it looks like, what contributes to it, and how you can prevent it.
We’d love to hear from you. Do you struggle with loneliness when working from home? How are you dealing with it? Comment below and let us know!
Identifying and Addressing Entrepreneur Loneliness
What We Talked About
- [00:00] The epidemic of entrepreneur loneliness
- [01:14] Our personal experiences with loneliness as entrepreneurs
- [04:10] The impact of a lack of human interaction
- [06:00] Signs you’re struggling with isolation
- [08:40] Habits in online businesses that contribute to loneliness and how to deal with them
- [12:25] The importance of routines: Intentionally making time for human interaction
- [15:03] Evaluating your loneliness and asking for support when you need it
- [16:57] Looking out for your friends who work from home
- [19:47] Free resource: Ideas for healing lonely hearts (Coming soon!)
- [20:42] What we bought/read/watched this week
How Habits of Online Business Owners Contribute to Loneliness
“We sleep, eat, do everything in the house when we work from home. Many days, besides driving to school one time in the morning, I don’t drive anywhere else. So I think that that part makes it lonely, because it feels like you’re only in one little space of this whole wide world.” – Teri
“The energy that you get from being around other people, or the energy that you get from really great conversations, and the camaraderie and rapport that happens of just knowing you’re not alone in the world, or alone in your feelings, and all of that is just so powerful that when you don’t have that, it’s important to recognize that it’s sucking the life out of you.” – Pam
“Maybe we don’t even name it loneliness. You look at it and you’re like, ‘Oh, I just feel stressed,’ or, ‘I feel disconnected,’ and recognizing maybe that’s coming from a place of, ‘No, I’m really feeling lonely.'” – Pam
“I think sometimes the habits that we create in our online businesses lead to some of this … like working long hours. We’ve both done that. If you sit at your computer all day, all night, you really are never going to be with other humans. Not having on your calendar time for social things where you are actually with other human beings. I think you have to make more of an effort now to do that than we had to in the past.” – Teri
How to Prevent Isolation as an Entrepreneur
“You just have to ask yourself, ‘How deep into this, am I? Is this really impacting my quality of life? Is it to the point where I am struggling with depression?’ Then go seek professional help. If it’s in your business and you recognize, ‘I’m not motivated, I’m not getting things done, maybe talk to a coach, see if they can get you you know the direction you need, or a mastermind, or something like that. All of that, super helfpul.” – Pam
“You can be a real encourager for somebody just to reach out and say, ‘Hey, I see you. I see you weren’t here. I see that you seem to be anxious today,’ or, ‘You seem to be sad today. Do you want to talk?’ Could be a really powerful thing for for people.” – Pam
“So I think it’s just being aware of where you’re at, space you’re in, what it feels like, and what other people around you feel like, and then figuring out your own personal solution to deal with, with this. It’s that’s a reality of what what the world is right now.” – Teri
Additional Resources
- Read along with Teri: The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center
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